Sedgwick County KSGenWeb

Portrait And Biographical Album of Sedgwick County, Kan.

Chapman Brothers 1888

Pages 736 - 737 

JOHN BAIRD owns and occupies a good farm of 156 acres on section 10, in Park Township, which is mainly devoted to the raising of grain, cattle and horses. He came to this section of country in 1870, accompanied by John P. Rice, R. Regle and John Regle, making the journey from Jefferson City in a wagon, and all settled in this county, Mr. B. upon the land to which he has since given his undivided time and attention.

            The boyhood home of our subject was about eight miles from the town of Fir Tree, England, where his birth took place June 19, 1830. His father, John Baird, Sr., was a native of Scotland, a plasterer by trade, and both mentally and physically a man who attracted unusual attention, being of fine stature, over six feet tall, and possessing in a marked degree the admirable characteristics of his substantial Scotch ancestry. The mother, formerly Miss Sarah Wright, and a native of England, died soon after the arrival of the family in New York City, and was laid to rest upon a stranger soil. The father subsequently took up his residence in St. Louis, where he was eventually married to Mrs. Elizabeth Slack. His second wife survived him, and is now also deceased.

            Our subject was but a child when his parents emigrated to the United States, and he distinctly remembers how the father left his family and went out to look for work in the great metropolis. His first job was the plastering of a church at Wheeling, W. Va., whence he proceeded later to New Orleans, and from there to Jackson, Miss., where he took a contract to plaster the State House at that point, and where his death took place. Of his first marriage there had been born three children, one of whom died in New York City, and another, Hannah, in Alton, Ill. John, Jr., is the only survivor of the family.

             Our subject, left an orphan when ten years of age, lived with his stepmother in St. Louis until fourteen, and was then apprenticed to learn the trade of plasterer, at which he served three and one-half years under one man. On account of his small stature, however, he for a time abandoned this, by the advice of his friends, and engaged as a worker in sheet iron and copper one year. At the expiration of this time he returned to his first business, which he followed in St. Louis until 1853, then journeyed overland to California, and was there engaged at his trade and in mining four years. He then returned to St. Louis via the Isthmus, and proceeded thence to Alton, Ill., where his brother-in-law was carrying on an extensive business in bricklaying.

             Mr. Baird, however, remained but a short time in Alton, but repaired to Edwardsville, and assisted in finishing the court-house then in process of construction. This completed he returned to St. Louis, and assisted in the plastering of several churches, and when work grew scarce at that point returned to Alton. Here there was plenty of work but very little money, and Mr. Baird finally entered into partnership with a gentleman of that place, and operated extensively as a plasterer until the dissolution of the firm, when he operated by himself. After another visit to St. Louis he made his way into Carter County, Mo., where he suffered an attack of malarial fever, returned to St. Louis, was afterward a resident of Carrollton, Ill., for a brief time, and subsequently returned to his old haunts in Alton. Later he again visited Carrollton, Ill., and assisted in plastering the Catholic Church there in 1866.

             Mr. Baird followed his trade afterward in St. Louis on the County Insane Asylum, the Masonic Temple and other buildings; attended the great fair there in the fall of 1868, and afterward worked on the State House of Jefferson City, Mo., and in the Senate Chamber, and after another visit to St. Clair County, made his way to Southern Kansas, where he has since remained.

             Mr. Baird, politically, like his father before him was decidedly Democratic until the organization of the Republican party in 1856, when he felt that he had reason to change his views, and has since given to this party his cordial support. He is serving his second term as Constable and has been Treasurer and Director of his school district several years. He was made a Royal Arch Mason in Alton, and served as Tyler of his lodge for some time. After coming to Kansas he transferred his credentials to Ark Lodge No. 243, at Valley Center. He also belongs to the Patrons of Husbandry, and in religious matters is a member of the Episcopal Church. His domestic affairs are presided over by himself, and no man is more highly respected in his community than John Baird.

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